Mark Valeski garnered much of the attention leading into Saturday's 67th running of the $100,000 Louisiana Handicap for older horses at the Fair Grounds. The 4-year-old was making his first start since winning the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes last May and had enjoyed a successful tenure at the Fair Grounds last meet as he finished second in the Louisiana Derby and Risen Star Stakes.

Add in the fact that he is trained by Larry Jones with the popular and successful Rosie Napravnik as his jockey and there was no wonder why he went off as the heavy favorite.

But Infrattini stole the spotlight as he rallied past Mark Valeski in the stretch and won by one and three-quarter lengths. It was Infrattini's fourth consecutive victory at four different race tracks. The 5-year-old, a bay son of Include who is owned by Z Thoroughbreds, covered the one mile and one-sixteenth in 1:44.62 and paid $7.80 to win. Hurricane Ike came in third.

“My boss told me don’t rush him and get a good break. You know, the two and the one horse went to the lead and we were sitting being patient," winning jockey Miguel Mena said.

“This horse keeps getting better and better. Unfortunately, I didn’t ride him last time, I was out of town. But, I am thankful enough for Paul getting me on the horse and today, for me, is his best race.”

Infrattini began his winning streak Sept. 20 at Arlington Park with 6 1/4-length score in an optional claiming race. He followed that with a one-length victory Oct. 24 at Keeneland and then a 7 1/4-length romp in a $100,000 optional claiming race at Churchill Downs on Nov. 22. He posted a huge 106 Beyer speed figure in the Churchill race.

“We thought we’d give him a little time after that race at Churchill and it looks like it worked out good," trainer Paul McGee said. "We gave him two months between races and he was fresh today and ready to go. I think it paid off for us to wait on this race. Now he has won four in a row at four different tracks.

“He was a good 3-year-old and a better 4-year-old and now he is even better as a 5-year-old but I think some of that is his breeding; Include says he might be a good older horse going long."

The grade III Mineshaft Handicap on Feb. 23 is the next prep race for the Fair Grounds Handicap but McGee wouldn't commit to that as Infrattini's next race. "“I don’t know," he said. "We’ll see. I’ll get with the (owners) and we’ll come up with a plan.”

Neither Jones or Napravnik were disaapointed with how Mark Valeski ran coming off such a long layoff.

“It was a great effort," Napravnik said. "He’s been off for a long time and that’s a really nice horse that beat him. This will set him up for his next race very well. He feels great since he’s come back. We never really got to test him to see just how good he was last year but we should be able to see this year how far he’s able to go because he’s in pretty good shape.”

Said Jones: “It was a great effort on the horse’s part, and that other horse just broke the track record at Churchill so you know he’s good. It’s disappointing to us, yeah, because we wanted to win.

“Mark coming in second at Fair Grounds? Yeah, I can see that. He’s starting to make a habit of this. But it was a great effort first-time out and you could tell he was really tired; when he came back it took him a long time to get back. He was needing to catch his breath.”